


Remember Love

by puckity



Category: Lost
Genre: Angst and Porn, Frottage, M/M, Semi-Public Sex, Valentine's Day, just a lot of feelings, probably qualifies as schoompy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-02
Updated: 2005-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 13:08:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1900101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puckity/pseuds/puckity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loneliness is connection in the right situations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember Love

**Author's Note:**

> Another oldie from 2005. I feel like the schmoop is age-appropriate for having written this when I was like 17. 
> 
> Canon is through the episode when Ethan is killed, so this doesn't explain away Jack’s magic wife or his playing the piano or Boone being alive or anything. 
> 
> Beta’d by two of my three most excellent betas: Amber and Emmy.
> 
> You can also follow me on [Tumblr](http://puckity.tumblr.com/).

_It_ _’s funny,_ Jack thought. _The things you miss when you’re stranded on some godforsaken island._

Slippers. Steak. That expensive bottle of designer cologne that your mom bought you after your first year of residency. Cups that don’t make water taste like tin. Water that doesn’t taste like tin. Valentines. One by one they all faded away, until they were only vague fleeting things, and they didn’t hurt anymore.

Until someone reminded you.

\---

It was Kate’s idea to have a Valentine’s Day. Enough couples had formed that, according to her, it would be appreciated. When Jack gave her a look, trying to make her feel foolish without exposing his embarrassing—and painful—secret, she recanted, but only a little.

“We don’t have to call it Valentine’s Day. There doesn’t have to be a dance or fancy dinner or anything. Just have a day where people can remember love.” Jack tried to seem busy fiddling with various bottles and containers.

“I’m sure we can take one day out of ‘island survival’ to remember love.” He muffled a snort.

“You do remember love, don’t you Jack?” Kate didn’t wait for his answer. He knew she thought he was pouting because she had been siding with Sawyer over him on some camp issues. He knew she thought he was jealous. He knew she was loving it. He chuckled, but it tasted bitter in his mouth. Somewhere he was hearing Charlie playing soft chords, lulling him into that same recurring dream. The dream he couldn’t quite remember and couldn’t quite forget. The dream that had slowly become Jack’s waking nightmare.

Remember love. How the hell could Jack forget it?

\---

Charlie set down his guitar for a minute and stretched out his fingers. Glancing from person to person, he no longer saw individuals. There were only couples: Kate and Sawyer…Sun and Jin…Shannon and Sayid…Locke and Boone.

He snickered a little at that last one. It wasn’t that he was laughing because they were two guys; he was laughing because they was just about the least similar two guys he had ever met. But, what was that phrase? Opposites attract? Yes, opposites attract. At least they seemed happy. Everyone seemed happy. It was just like every Valentine’s Day he had ever known.

He never seemed to have the right timing for that particular holiday. He had always just broken up with his girlfriend, and was too depressed to try and pick up someone so he’d get smashed instead. Valentine’s Day for him was less about the flowers and candy and more about the hangovers the next morning.

He glanced over at Claire. Jack had told him, but he hadn’t needed to. Charlie knew it, had been keeping track. Claire was over a month late. Jack said that the baby was healthy, she was healthy, but it just wasn’t going anywhere. He watched as she rubbed her belly aimlessly, soothingly, with a glazed look in her eyes. Charlie knew that look. It was the look of difference. The look that separated him and Claire from everyone else. The look that Ethan Rom gave them.

Jack had a look too, Charlie had noticed. When he thought no one was watching, a wild, savage thing would stretch across his features. It scared Charlie. But he would blink and it would vanish, like it was never there to begin with.

\---

Jack was not going to stay at the caves tonight. It would be the first time he had left for the night without it being some kind of search party. Then again, this was a kind of search. He had looked for something on this island before, and Locke had told him there was magic. That was what he needed now. Actually, he needed more than magic. He needed a miracle.

Every girlfriend he ever had told him that he was a gentleman. Flowers, chocolates, candlelight dinners, violins, waltzing. For Valentine’s Day he went all out. The girls thought that he was being romantic. What he was doing was reassuring himself that this was love, with all the affection money could buy. They would go home and he would made love to her like a gentleman. The perfect boyfriend, the perfect man. Now the perfect leader, the perfect protector. Perfection was something he had come to loathe.

When he knew he couldn’t stare outright, he learned to listen. That was how he knew most everything that ever went on at the hospital. When people think you are not listening they say all kinds of things. Jack was listening, and what he heard was struggling notes and words tripping over each other. He heard Charlie, bringing the only bit of art to the camp. He was working things out in his music, and even though Jack only caught pieces here and there, he knew the feeling with every chord change, every note shift. This wasn’t a song; it was a confessional.

Jack was imagining Charlie in his Catholic school boy outfit when the guitar abruptly stopped and he could hear Charlie telling himself that what he had just played was stupid. Jack had to disagree, but couldn’t say it. So he listened a little more, determined to understand. Charlie started again, louder than before.

_I was a mess before_  
 _Somehow I made it here_  
 _Somehow I made it through_  
 _Somehow I made it to you_  
 _I think you were a little cold_  
 _When you made it here_  
 _And you made it through_  
 _Did you hurt a little too?_  
 _I think I never felt like this_  
 _Even when I felt like this_  
 _It was different, and less_  
 _Than this could never be_  
 _I want to help you, to save you_  
 _If only you would let me in_  
 _I know you’re strong, I know you’re weak_  
 _I know you’re afraid under that smile._

The sound trailed off, dissipating somewhere above the trees. Which was a shame, because Jack liked that one. He liked it in spite of the fact that he knew if he turned around Charlie would be staring forlornly at Claire. He liked it because he wanted to be saved. He wanted Charlie to be singing to him. He wanted that song to be for him.

Jack had bought love for his girlfriends and they called him a gentleman. It was funny, Jack thought. All that love purchased over the years couldn’t have prepared him for the real thing.

\---

Charlie wanted to serenade Claire under the moonlight, just to make that look go away. He wanted to write a song about her golden hair and goodness, about how she was the sweetest person he had ever known. Instead he found himself tracing Jack’s back with his eyes, running over the lines of muscles and jutting bone, imagining for an uncensored moment that it was his hands doing the tracing instead. And all the while he mouth was telling the whole camp how he felt. Only no one cared. He had almost forgotten.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Charlie wanted to be able to take care of someone, to be the strong one for once. Every time he came into contact with Jack it seemed like he could barely do anything more than nod along with his assurances. He was fooling himself thinking that Jack would let himself saved. He was fooling himself that Jack even needed to be saved. Besides, the job of overbearing, needy, emotional companion was already being amply filled by Kate.

Jack had been packing, like he was leaving. Charlie wondered if he was going to go pick a jungle bouquet for his lady love. Jack lifted his backpack over his shoulders, and as Charlie forgot he was staring their eyes met.

It was like entering a vortex. One beyond the reality of the world, where there was nothing but Jack’s eyes looking through him. It was hot, like fire, like tension and passion and something primal. And it was painful, and solitary. That scared Charlie a little too. Mostly because he had never seen Jack look like this before, especially not towards him. He could feel a power, a draw, like drunks to a bar, like he wanted to walk over there and see what would happen.

Charlie had boyish charm. Like an imp. He wasn’t sexy like other men. He was too short for one, and just too goofy. But women liked him all the same. Jack was one of those people who wasn’t sexy for a different reason. It was because he was too nice. He was helpful and decent and gentle. He was like a loving father to the tribe. He was the resident everyman. But he was something else altogether to Charlie.

To Charlie, Jack was strength. Then again, Jack was also vulnerability. What he was—for Charlie anyway—was dangerous. This was dangerous. Because Charlie was swallowing hard and thinking of things he only ever thought of in a pissed stupor, when he could blame alcohol in the morning. He was thinking he’d like to rip off all his clothes, which were suddenly too warm. He was thinking about the pain that had hardened like a tumor in his abdomen. He was thinking about isolation and being alone. He was thinking about begging Jack to fuck him until it didn’t hurt anymore.

“Charlie!” Charlie’s head jerked up at Locke’s concerned voice. Locke looked over in the direction of Jack, and then back to Charlie, who was trying to look cool and not at all aroused. Something like suspicion crossed his face.

“What’s up, Locke?” A little too fast, but not bad after what had just happened.

“Do you and Claire have anything…planned?” For a second Charlie thought Locke was asking so he could spend Valentine’s Day with her. Then he saw Boone in the background, and smiled.

“Well, not exactly. Why?”

“Well, Boone and I have more than enough food, and I was hoping that I could talk a little with her, about the baby.” He sensed Charlie’s skepticism. “Nothing upsetting, I promise.”

Charlie pretended to think about it, like he could concentrate on poor Claire with all those other thoughts consuming his mind. “I guess. Alright.” Locke smiled, and turned to Boone, who Charlie was suddenly and inexplicably jealous of.

“But take care of her!” He called after them, just to make sure everyone saw his concern.

\---

“Jack, don’t do this.” Kate was blocking the path out towards the beach. If he really wanted to, Jack could have pushed her aside without thinking twice. Instead he was listening with stretched patience to her half-hearted plea.

“You can’t go out there alone Jack. Not at night. You know that. And besides, what if someone gets hurt?” Jack’s face twisted into an ironic smile.

“If someone gets hurt doing something tonight, I don’t think I want to see it.” The look on Kate’s face said that she didn’t appreciate his innuendo.

“Fine. What if you get hurt? What will we do then? If you could just not be a baby, just this once-“

“A baby?” Jack’s tone was mocking. More and more, this was how he was. He was not being understanding of all Kate’s little trials. He was refusing to hold her hand every time she decided to play the island princess. He was being mean. Kate saw this, saw the hardening in his eyes, and somewhere deep inside she cried.

“Why is this such a big deal?” The edge was gone, but not forgotten. Now he just sounded exasperated. “I don’t understand why me not wanting to sit around while Romance Night is played out in front of my eyes is such a huge thing, Kate.”

“You know, you could be part of it.” She talked faster to keep him from interrupting. “Jack, no one said you had to be the celibate leader. It’s okay to let your feelings out once in a while.” Her hand was touching his sleeve, and her eyes were wide. “It wouldn’t kill you.”

“Yes.” He moved away, innocuously separating their bodies. “It would.”

\---

“How are you feeling, Claire?” Charlie felt awkward, more so than when she knew who he was and all the conversations they had had. She hadn’t tried to rekindle whatever

Charlie had told himself was innately there. Then again, he hadn’t really tried either.

“How well can you feel when you’re a month overdue?” She offered a little smile, but it seemed cheap, without sincerity. “I’m okay Charlie. What about you?”

He thought about himself. How was he? He was half dead, hallucinating, creating vivid and slightly disturbing sexual fantasies in his mind involving the leader of their little civilization. He was losing his mind.

“Can’t complain.” She nodded, not surprised by this dance of polite rituals.

“You don’t mind, do you? I mean, me having dinner with Locke and Boone? I didn’t know…about us…” The pathetic sentence dribbled off into infinity.

“Oh no, no, that’s fine. I hadn’t, didn’t even have anything planned.”

She giggled a little, the first sign all day of some semblance of normal. “I just hope I don’t spoil the evening for them. Nothing like a cranky pregnant girl to ruin the mood.” Charlie laughed, and it sounded good, felt good.

He didn’t want to sweep her off her feet. He didn’t want to save her from the evils of this world. He didn’t even really want to spend this makeshift Valentine’s Day with her. He just wanted her to be alright. He wanted things to be back to normal, or as normal as things on this island could be.

\---

The wild. Sawyer had said it once. When Jack asked him where he was, he said he was in the wild. Jack took a deep breath and stepped off the dull path that would spit him out at the dull beach. The crack of plants and branches beneath his weight gave him a sort of rush. It was defiance. It was destruction. It was not caring for anyone, it was selfish.

His stomach clenched, and he felt ugly.

The farther he walked the uglier he felt, until he imagined the he must look like a burn victim. No longer a person, only scars. That was Jack. Scars. He could name them if he wanted. Dad. Mom. Kate. The plane. Everyone he ever tried to help. Everyone he tried to help and couldn’t.  
Charlie.

Charlie wasn’t a scar. He was just the physical manifestation of many scars. Sexuality. Perversion. Intolerance. Hatred. Fear. Charlie embodied all these things for Jack, and yet all Jack wanted to do was help him. Only not like he had helped the others. Jack wanted to help Charlie because that was the only way he could help himself.

He sat down in the middle of the forest and listened. He imagined he could still hear Charlie playing, but he knew he couldn’t. Then he did what he had sworn to himself he wouldn’t. He began to cry. Not for his father, not for being stranded on this fucking island. Not even for Charlie. He was crying for himself, and everything he could never do.

\---

Three times. Charlie had counted. That was how many times he had cried while on this island. He felt like a tosser. For God’s sake, he had cried more often than the girls had. It was almost embarrassing.

But it was kind of expected. If there was going to be one crying man, one member of the male sex that could express the collective grief of all the men there, it was Charlie. Still, it felt like a cheap card to have been dealt.

In the stages of getting to know someone, there are levels. Being trapped with the same people for a couple months tends to speed up the process. Charlie had seen people change, but no one less than Jack. He had seen primal fear unleashed, murderous rages and desperate sexual acts, but not from Jack. He remained the constant in this ever-shifting massive sociological experiment. He was the one thing Charlie could count on: Jack being there, strong and ready.

So standing there, not even really hidden, watching Jack with his head in his hands, making gasping noises and forcing his body into shudders, was slightly unnerving. He had no idea what to do. He was never good with tears. Any girlfriend who had cried had had Midol handed to her from a safe distance. He didn’t know how to stop it, how to help him, if he should even be there or not. But, for some reason, it ended up that he didn’t have to know.

Jack raised his head, his cheeks glistening and flushed, and used the back of his arm to dry them. Looking nowhere but straight ahead, he spoke, and with only a little break in his voice. “Hey Charlie.”

Charlie cleared his throat out of habit. “Hey.”

Jack had now turned towards him, with an odd, sort of morbidly amused smile.

“Valentine’s Day never was my favorite holiday.”

\---

When Jack stood up, all the blood rushed to his head. A less graceful man would have fallen back into the sharp roots and various plant life he had just been crushing where he sat. Jack managed to only wobble and blink frantically as he steadied himself. He rubbed his eyes and realized he had a headache. He had found it amusing to start naming his occasional ailments, most of which seemed to be increasingly more violent migraines. Of those there were about five Kates, three Sawyers, a loud argument in Korean, two misplaced bottles of water, a missing razor, one midnight wake-up call by some sort of exotic bird, and a pinky toe that he was pretty sure he had broken when he jammed it against a stealth rock. He would name this one Valentine’s Day.

“Um, alright there, Jack?” Charlie was looking at him like he might be sick. He didn’t move from the tree he had cemented himself next to. Jack really couldn’t have blamed him if he turned and made a mad dash into the jungle.

“It’s just a headache. Nothing serious.” Jack’s eyes had finally refocused and he looked up, trying to give the younger man some kind of reassurance. It briefly crossed his mind that reassurance was the biggest joke on this sand pile. Every so often he would listen to someone telling someone else that they would get off the island soon. People had stopped using the phrase ‘rescue’ because it had started to sound like a sick game. Now it was just vague references to a passing ship or plane or something, anything, that would see them and take them away. Take them home.

Home. That was a bitter word for Jack to swallow. What was at his home, left for him to go back to? His mother, who would blame him for killing his father. Being a hospital doctor instead of a survival doctor. Buying love for his own cheap validation. And more people, just waiting to be rescued. Waiting for him to save them. He suddenly felt like he was swimming in mud, and the last thing he thought was if this was what those kids who used to come into the hospital after choking each other and blacking out felt like.

\---

Charlie didn’t like girls crying. He liked it less when men cried. He really didn’t like it when Jack cried. He wasn’t entirely sure why it couldn’t end there, why whatever cosmic phenomenon that was having a grand time messing with them felt the need to make Jack lapse into a coma. Or maybe he had just fainted. Either way, it meant two things: first, Charlie had to go over and see if he was alright and, second, Charlie would more than likely have to drag Jack’s limp body all the way back to camp. Just perfect. He could hear Shannon, in her cold, harsh voice, demanding what Charlie did, exactly, that caused their doctor to pass out cold. Perfect.

As Charlie hovered over Jack, not completely sure that he wasn’t about to screw things up even more, a much more upsetting thought settled into his mind. Where in the hell were they? He had just followed Jack, assuming that he would lead them to some secret stash or hideaway. Some magic leader thing. It was while Jack was sobbing that Charlie had started to seriously doubt the mental state of his unknowing companion.

“Oh, for flip’s sake!” Charlie had never been one to hold back on obscenities, but being around Claire so much must have taken the sailor’s tongue out of him.

The question now was, what to do? _I suppose_ , Charlie thought cynically, _I should check and make sure he isn’t dead._ He glanced at his own hand, covered in dirt and sweat, and tried to clean it off on his jeans. Satisfied that his palm was clean enough for a possibly dead man, Charlie held it over Jack’s thin lips, waiting for the feeling of warm breath across his skin. For the longest moment he waited, in absolute stillness, until he felt a solid puff. Well, that was a good sign, at any rate. At least he wasn’t dead. At least his heart was still going. Charlie could feel the beat, labored like it held a burden all its own, through Jack’s shirt. He hadn’t even realized that his hand had come to rest on Jack’s chest. Under his palm a steady rise and fall of the lungs. And that beat. Just a little too hard. Just a little too fast. But it was fading away from Charlie’s fingers, and he pressed harder to maintain the connection. He glanced at Jack’s frozen face and took a quick breath. His head fell to the hollow of that chest and that heartbeat. Its pulsing echoed in his ears, like drums and marching feet and war.

\---

Jack’s first thought was about how on earth his head could feel like someone was taking a jackhammer to it. His second thought was about the lump on his chest. He tried not to move, in case it was a spider or rabid monkey or something. Straining his neck, he saw a tuft of golden brown hair. Charlie. In Jack’s pounding brain he saw Charlie dead, attacked by something while Jack lost touch with consciousness. He imagined burying Charlie, his slight frame laying crumpled in a tarp. He thought about never hearing another one of his cheesy pick-up lines, if only when Charlie was getting his opinion on them. And then he thought about the distinct movement that was occurring a little lower on his body.

A hand, and definitely not one of his hands, was rubbing his thigh. He wondered what kind of person sexual accosts somebody who is unconscious. Not that that mattered a lot, at this point in time. But it did raise a few ethical questions.

A voice, soft and muffled, said something that sounded like ‘bit fingers’. While Jack was contemplating whether or not he wanted to sit up and stop that hand, like a telepathic message, Charlie shifted and moved away from Jack, who suddenly, and for reasons he was not too keen on exploring, shut his eyes and tried to play comatose.

“It figures.” Charlie was repeating himself, and Jack winced at the edge of annoyance in his tone. He wondered what figured. That Charlie was stuck out here, in the middle of the middle of nowhere, with a dead weight body to drag back to camp. That Charlie was with Jack instead of Claire. That Charlie couldn’t get any from anyone else, so he had to resort to groping Jack while he was defenseless. Yeah, Jack thought coldly. It figured.

“It figures, Jack, that I only have the balls to say something to you while you’re off chasing butterflies in la-la land.”

\---

Jack’s eyes had shot open like he had been stabbed. Charlie let out a scream that he knew sounded like a 12 year-old girl. But in his defense, that had really fucking scared him.

As soon as he willed his hands to stop shaking he waved them, from a close distance, in front of Jack.

“Jack? Hello, Jack, you still with me, mate?” All those crazy virus movies came back to Charlie. Maybe whatever made people sick on this island traveled through the soil.

“Wh...I…ou...id?” Charlie knew that Jack was trying to ask him something. He just didn’t know what.

“What,” Jack sat up, and Charlie thought he looked normal. But then again, the infected always look normal, right before they rip your head off with their bare hands.

“What did you say while I was off in la-la land?”

Oh. Shit. This was not the conversation that Charlie had wanted to have with anyone, let alone Jack, ever. He could pretend he didn’t know what Jack was talking about, but he had waited too long for that. Jack knew he knew. He could lie. That could work.

“And Charlie?”

“Hm?” Charlie didn’t totally trust his mouth at the moment.

“Don’t lie to me.”

Alright. So that was out. He could run. But Jack could probably catch him. And then there was always the possibility of running into that monster, or Ethan. No, running was out too. There was the truth. Not that that had ever helped him in the past. And it would probably screw him over once more. But considering the options. Well, there weren’t any.

Fuck this for a game of soldiers.

Charlie looked up just in time to see that Jack wasn’t sitting anymore. In fact, he was on top of Charlie. And Charlie’s head had just hit something that wasn’t hard enough to be a rock, but was odd shaped and uncomfortable to lean against. A root, most likely.

Then Charlie’s head was being ground into it. And that hurt. But he could ignore that, because a pair of thin lips with a Jack attached to them were kissing him, rather sloppily. Just like that heartbeat. A little too hard. A little too fast. A little too desperate and Jack wasn’t fooling Charlie.

Charlie could say something. And probably get punched in the face. Usually he wouldn’t assume Jack would be violent, but then again he wouldn’t usually assume that Jack would be making an attempt at more or less consensual rape. Or he could just sit here and enjoy the ride. It wasn’t like he wasn’t all for it. Not in so many words at least.

“I know it may be hard to distinguish,” Jack had paused and Charlie’s vocal chords had gone ahead without the mental OK. He would rip them out later. “I mean, I know that I am not the most butch guy on the island. And I know you just passed out over there. But, well…I’m not Kate.” The words were said slowly, enunciating, and Charlie could hear himself being patronizing. Probably not a good thing.

“And please don’t punch me in the face. I bruise easily there. Try the stomach. Does more damage anyway.” Charlie tightened his abdomen and closed his eyes. He would have covered his face, but at some point, Jack had gotten his wrists in a vice grip. Charlie prayed to whatever bit of God he still believed in that Jack didn’t hate him.

\---

He was an idiot. What could he have possibly been thinking. Kissing Charlie? Forget that he had pinned him, for lack of a better term, and forget that Charlie hadn’t said that he didn’t want it. Not in so many words, at any rate. Jack had never been good at picking up girls, but this took the cake. He wasn’t an idiot, he was utterly delusional. He was insane. That was the only explanation for all of this. The stress had gotten to him, and he had lost his mind. The only possible explanation.

“Kate?” Jack was vaguely aware of his voice, and how it sounded like a deranged lunatic. That, coupled with the strange laugh he was emitting, certified him as a nutcase.

“Yeah.” Charlie still had his eyes shut, like a kid who knew the shot was coming, but didn’t want to watch the needle get closer. “You know, long dark hair, blue eyes, hangs around you all the time, clearly wants to get into your trousers.” He opened one eye, but only a little.

“Oh.” Jack’s voice had neutralized, and he just sounded deflated now. “That Kate. The one who won’t give me a minute’s peace, who is either bothering me about her or bothering me about me, how I haven’t slept, how I don’t look so good, how I should get into the goddamn Valentine’s Day spirit.” He took a breath and bit his lip. “That Kate?”

“That seems to be an ample and accurate description. But then again, I am slightly biased.” Charlie was looking at Jack now, both of his strange blue eyes staring wide, cheerful and uncertain. He couldn’t hide it from Jack. Jack was used to liars.

“For or against?” Charlie quirked his head to the side, and seemed to wince at something. “Biased. Are you biased for Kate, or against her?”

“Well, she has always been nice to me. And she is nice to Claire. And then there was that time that she smacked Sawyer.” Charlie gave a smug smile, and Jack chuckled. He lifted himself off of Charlie’s legs, sitting back, knees up, offering a hand to help his attackee out of the dirt. Charlie yanked it, harder than Jack would have given him credit for, and coughed when Jack’s elbow landed in his chest.

“Are you alright?” Jack didn’t want to have to carry Charlie back with a broken rib. People might start talking.

Whatever Charlie’s answer was it got lodged somewhere in the back of Jack’s throat, as Charlie, lips, teeth, tongue and all, dragged Jack back to straddling him, back to that kind of desperate abandon Jack was convinced had driven him temporarily insane. It didn’t matter, because Charlie’s teeth had clamped down hard on Jack’s tongue, and Jack was relishing the moment of masochism, of pain and pleasure and that copper taste of blood that he had studied about in Med School. Charlie released Jack’s tongue and laughed, just once.

“Against. Definitely against.”

\---

Charlie had always had a bit of an exhibitionist streak. Elevators, broom closets, airplane toilets. But it wasn’t really the place that did it. It was always the passion, the spur of the moment, the fucking-to-not-get-caught quality. And it didn’t matter who it was with. Bird, bloke, or even if he was just wanking off. The feeling was contagious. It was, far and away, the best sex he had.

When he kissed Jack again he could taste the blood. He hadn’t realized how hard he bit down. The thought of hurting Jack was like a hollow pit, something to swallow down like headache pills the morning after. Only Jack didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to like it. On whole. A lot. So Charlie forced his hands up under Jack’s tee shirt and ran them up and down that long back, tracing muscle movement and skin, and a sown up scar that he fingered lightly. War doctor.

Carefully avoiding the stitches, Charlie arched his back to grind his own more than ready cock, still trapped in his jeans, against the place where, theoretically, Jack’s more than ready cock should be.

Charlie was flat on his back, that root leaving welts on his scalp, before he had a chance to think up a next move. His jagged nails had scratched a trail down Jack’s back. Which seemed to make Jack push harder. For a moment both of them forgot they could take off certain articles of their clothing.

Charlie blamed it on the lack of oxygen. When Jack finally moved his mouth to Charlie’s neck, underneath his chin, and Charlie could feel Jack sucking on his throat as he swallowed, Charlie forced his hands to a zipper. Whether it belonged to Jack or himself was completely irrelevant at the moment. Unzip. Unbutton. Pull. They happened to be

Jack’s, who looked back, momentarily, and then made an awkward move for Charlie’s trousers.

“No, no, it’s fine Jack. I’ve got it under control. You just keep at what your doing.” Charlie felt a small twinge of vindication at being able to prove that he was not entirely worthless. Now for the actual sex, more or less.

 _I hadn’t thought of that._ For a second, Charlie let himself freak out. For a second, Charlie let himself feel Jack nipping aggressively at his collarbone. For a second, Charlie let go of everything he was afraid of: dying, never being rescued, being alone on this hellhole while everyone else paired off, or worse, while everyone else was picked off by whatever curse or voodoo or supernatural power it was that kept screwing them, repeatedly. For a second he just felt the warm body on top of him, and realized that for the first time in whenever he could actually give five personal details about his sex partner. How long had he been in love with Jack? It didn’t matter, but for one second he wondered.

\---

“You’re going commando?” This, out of everything in the situation unfolding in front of Jack’s eyes, seemed to surprise him the most.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when I am stranded on a deserted island and I don’t have me mum to dress me.” Jack would have thought of a clever remark to wipe that cheeky look off of Charlie’s face, but a warm hand on his own exposed penis…Jack made a face that was thankfully overlooked by Charlie, who was busy elsewhere. If he was going to go around doing nasty sex acts in the jungle he would have to stop calling things by their anatomically correct name. Dick, cock, even member. Anything but the word penis.

Anything but a reminder that he was a doctor, correction, _**the**_ doctor, and supposedly able to exert some kind of self control.

The hand that was now slowly jacking him off made Jack embarrassingly aware of the fact that he was not doing anything, reciprocal or otherwise. When he was nervous he unconsciously cleared his throat. The hand stopped. Didn’t leave. Just paused.

“Yes, Jack? Have something to say?” God, could this be any more humiliating. As a doctor he was trained to touch for comfort, but expressly not for pleasure. Now he didn’t know how to do that at all.

“Um, should I be, um, doing anything?” Jack was staring at a strange looking mushroom next to Charlie’s ear. “To help?”

At least Charlie didn’t laugh. But his hand did leave Jack’s dick. That word sounded strange in his mind.

Suddenly he was almost sitting on Charlie’s lap, those dirty, rough hands resting just below his spine. And an indulgent look on the little bastard’s face.

“Use your hips.” One hand made a grab at his ass, and Jack jumped. “And start doing what you were doing before.” Jack focused on Charlie’s sternum, and the light hair that surrounded it. He remembered not caring if he broke it, or one of Charlie’s ribs for that matter, when he found Charlie hanging, lifeless, from that tree. He kissed the spot tentatively, and felt Charlie tense. He remembered it, too.

Jack would never tell anyone, not his therapist at the hospital, not any of his girlfriends, and definitely not his parents, about how he used to use this huge down pillow as a simulator. That was what his overly mature 15 year-old mind called it. What he did was hump it, supposedly for practice, but really because it felt unbelievably good. A feeling he could never duplicate with women, because it was the friction against himself that sent him over the edge. Because he couldn’t just use a girl as a pillow to rub against. But here was Charlie, telling him to do just that. It was probably the lack of sleep, the headaches, the over-exertion, the stress, the heat. But Jack was not in a mood to argue with it. Any of it.

\---

Well, there was one thing about Jack that seemed to apply across the board. He went full speed into everything he decided to do. And bloody hell, if he wasn’t pounding Charlie into the fucking mud. They weren’t even fucking, up the arse and all that. Charlie almost cringed at the thought of how long he wouldn’t be able to walk after that happened.

He was going to have bruises and cuts all over his back, and the back of his head was going to be raw by tomorrow. Which was exactly why he liked blokes. Only most blokes who like it rough will leave you with a couple of bruises and a mobile number that doesn’t work in the morning. Jack was everything they weren’t. But he sure fucked like they did. Which was, by far, the best thing Charlie had found out about him. Tonight.

When Jack began to really grind, he had made his way to Charlie’s mouth again. Charlie refrained from drawing any blood this time. Instead he wrapped his arms around Jack’s neck and dug his nails into Jack’s cropped hair. His legs clamped around Jack’s thighs and his head began to hit that root, over and over.

“Fmphk, Chamarle!” Jack was trying to lift his head, say something. Charlie didn’t give a damn. Air was not high enough on his list, not for Jack or himself.

It caught him by surprise. He bucked, and began to shudder, up, down, up, down. He was screaming, crying, swearing like the devil himself, but he still had Jack’s head in a lock, and so all he could hear was something that sounded like a small animal being strangled.

He felt that sensation of warm and sticky liquid plastering itself against his stomach. Only he didn’t know if it was his or Jack’s, because his head had stopped assaulting that root and Jack was panting into his mouth, and shaking all over.

For a first time, that wasn’t all that bad.

\---

They were kissing, but not like before. Because Jack was thinking about what to do next. That horrible gap between sex and the normal world. Or at least sex and the island.

The first step was getting up.

“We’re going back then?” Jack was thinking about how they were going to hide the wet spot on Charlie’s shirt as he dug through his backpack to find a towel of some sort.

“We probably should. I mean, it is late, and if I don’t get back Kate will probably get Locke and his knives out searching.” Jack wished he knew a way to not be the leader, now that he wasn’t pounding out all his sexual aggression and frustration onto Charlie.

“Are you,” He cleared his throat. “Okay? I mean, I think I was a little rough…I didn’t want to hurt you…did I, I didn’t did I?” His junior year English teacher would be appalled by that sentence.

“I’ve had rougher.” Charlie said it like a badge of honor, with a fake smile and something cold creeping back into his eyes.

“Charlie,” Jack smiled, and it tasted bitter. “Don’t lie to me.”

“The sex isn’t what hurts, Jack. It never is.” Charlie stripped off his shirt, thinking what Jack must have been thinking. Jack pulled out an old undershirt and tossed it at him. He turned, as if to survey the area, and pulled the shirt over his tousled hair. It was too big. Then he was walking away, just like Jack’s father, like Jack’s childhood best friend, like Jack’s roommate in residency. Like everyone in Jack’s life that he had ever cared for. And for the first time Jack realized that it was him, and not them. It was because he opened up like a tourist attraction, to drive by and look at through plexi-glass windows. Like a cheap whore, whose legs are shut after the money is on the dresser. It was because even when he was open, he was closed.

“Save me.” Charlie, who hadn’t walked all that far, turned and looked at him like he had just spoken in tongues. He began to come back, hesitantly, until he was standing in front of Jack with a quizzical look on his face and his arms crossed in front of him.

“What, exactly, am I saving you from, Jack?” _Fear. Loneliness. Pain. Guilt. Anger. Myself._

“Kate. She’s going to kill me for being gone this long.”

Charlie stared at him, and started giggling. Jack’s face finally loosened, and he chuckled a little himself. Charlie had given Jack the one thing he needed.

“I think I can take care of it for you.” He understood.


End file.
